New classroom to be built at Donington Primary School?

A new classroom is likely to be added to Donington’s Cowley Endowed Primary School later this year.

Lincolnshire County Council says the classroom will be housed in a flat roof extension to the school, which will also include a cloakroom, toilets and a store, if planning consent is given.

A council spokesman said: “It will hopefully be completed during the first half of the autumn term.”

The extra space will allow the school to boost its official annual intake from 35 to 40 places.

District and parish councillor Jane King, a governor at the primary school in Town Dam Lane, said: “It’s urgently needed but I don’t know for how long one additional classroom will be enough with all of the house building taking place in the village.”

Two years ago, Coun King raised the alarm about the primary and secondary schools being stretched to capacity, which she said would only get worse with so many new family homes being given planning consent.

This week Coun King said around that time a family living close to Donington’s primary school was asked to send their youngster to Gosberton, four miles away, because the school on their doorstep was full.

She said: “This is what happens when plans are passed because they are all family homes and with family homes come kids.

“It just proves the point, really, doesn’t it, that this is now what’s happening and the primary school needs more space.”

Coun King has welcomed the county council’s planning application and says she will give it her full support.

She says housing developments in Donington are running ahead of the infrastructure needed to support them but that is not the fault of the planning authority, South Holland District Council, because it must follow Government-set rules on planning applications.

• In April, Coun King voiced her concerns about a lack of school places and the absence of doctors and dentists in the village when a plan surfaced for 81 new homes beside the A152.